(CNSNews.com) -- Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) said that putting illegal aliens on a path to citizenship would “hurt unemployment in America” on Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

CNSNews.com asked Farenthold, “Do you think that allowing illegal aliens to stay in the United States and putting them on a path to citizenship, would that help the unemployed in America?”

“Actually, I think it will hurt unemployment in America,” Farenthold said.

“As you have, you have folks not lawfully present in the country take the jobs that are available," he continued. "But the real issue right now is the children and what we do with the children. We can’t wait to deal with all the problems of the immigration world. These children can’t wait. It’s dangerous, riding on the top of trains and getting smuggled across the river.”

As CNSNews.com earlier reported, legal and illegal immigrants have experienced improvements in job growth in recent years.

“A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) shows that legal and illegal immigrants had the greatest job growth since 2000, with 5.7 million jobs going to non-native working-age (16-65) people,” CNSNews.com reported.

The CIS report titled, All Employment Growth Since 2000 Went to Immigrants, states that three conclusions can be drawn from their analysis: the long-term decline in the employment for natives across age and education levels is a clear indication that there is not general labor shortage, the decline in work among the native-born over the last 14 years of high immigration is consistent with research showing that immigration reduces employment for natives, and over 17 million immigrants arrived in the country in the last 14 years, yet native employment has deteriorated significantly.